Thursday, January 5, 2012

Obama's Three "ANYs"

Barack Obama - the president we thought was going to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and restore the rule of law - has instituted a new regime. It's called "the three ANYs". The U.S. government can detain:

ANYone!

ANYwhere!

ANYtime!

(Got a problem with that?)

January 22, 2009: President Obama signs order to closeGuantanamo Bay Detention Center within one year.

Chicago was the site of major protests against U.S. detention practices
in Guantanamo, as well as in Bagram, other prisons throughout
Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the world, on and around January 11, 2012.
We called for an end to indefinite detention, unfair trials, and
torture.

"Occupy
Chicago opposes the language featured in the National Defense
Authorization Act, which if passed would allow for the indefinite
detention of American citizens by the military without charge or trail
anywhere in the world. This expands and codifies tactics from the War
on Terror of illegal detentions condemned by international law and our
own constitution. We urge senators Durbin and Kirk to oppose this type
of legislation in any form."

The story of the past decade-plus has been the story of the assertion by
some that the conception of law that our society has is not
sufficient. Simply put, there are those who say that there is a third,
"in-between" category of behavior -- and legal status -- that is not
civilian (subject to criminal law) and not military (subject to military
law and the laws of war). And since there are no rules about how to deal with that third category . . . .